Average price of electricity in the wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) for November dropped to P5.20 per kilowatt hour (kWh) from last month’s P6.51 per kwh, according to the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP).
IEMOP said the 20 percent decline was mainly due to the availability of more electricity supply with the completion of Malampaya’s scheduled maintenance shutdown.
During an online briefing last Friday, John Paul Grayda, IEMOP manager for market simulation and analysis division, said t average power supply available in WESM for November hit 14,246 megawatts (MW), over 6 percent higher from October’s 13,374 MW.
IEMOP saidt average demand for the period also mildly grew by more than 1 percent to 10,379 MW from 10,207 MW.
“We still don’t have an outlook for next month but based on historical results, we normally experience lower demand during December. If we will not experience significant outages, we see prices (of electricity in WESM) will be somehow close to P5 per kWh or even lower,” Grayda said.
The figures collated by IEMOP only reflect the situation in the Luzon and Visayas grids as Mindanao is not yet fully connected to the WESM. – Jed Macapagal
